Piccadilly and Circle line delays: Huge queues at King's Cross station after Tube delays spark chaos

Disruption: Commuters queue at King's Cross station
@GemmaGemo
Hatty Collier28 November 2016

These were the scenes at King’s Cross station this morning as commuters battled to get to work amid disruption on several London Underground lines.

Huge swathes of passengers queued to get into the station as delays hit the Piccadilly and Circle lines during rush hour.

Commuters on the Piccadilly Line faced fresh chaos this morning because of an ongoing “shortage of trains”.

The Circle line was suspended at about 7am after a signal failure at Tower Hill. Services later resumed but with severe delays.

Pictures emerged on social media of commuters squeezing their way into King’s station.

A swathe of commuters wait to enter King's Cross station
@JennyRohn

Commuter Gemma Hall posted a photo from inside the station on Instagram and wrote: “This nonsense at King’s Cross, nearly every day, is getting very boring.”

The 22-year-old project manager told the Standard it was chaotic with passengers queuing through a bottleneck to get down onto the platforms at the station.

She said: “I couldn’t even get down onto the platform. I gave up in the end and walked to Euston Square. It was pretty tight and a bit scary.

“I travel in from Hertfordshire and it’s busy every day but today was much worse."

Writer Jennifer Rohn tweeted: “Avoid King’s Cross as an entry station. Twenty minutes and counting wait to get through gates.”

Around half the Piccadilly Line’s trains were taken out of service on Friday due to “wet leaves on the track” and the situation has continued over the weekend and into Monday morning.

Transport bosses said the slippery rails were causing wheels on the Tube trains to lock, leading to excessive wear and rendering them unsafe.

Transport for London had warned the problems on the Underground’s fourth busiest line could last for days with no estimate of when the issue will be resolved, while the wheels are replaced.

Stations along the line including Manor House were closed this morning to prevent overcrowding.

Frustrated customers hit out at the delays.

Piccadilly line general manager Tony Matthews said in a statement: "‎I sincerely apologise to Piccadilly line customers for the ongoing disruption to their journeys.

"The safety of our customers and staff is our number one priority which is why we've had to continue taking some trains out of service to repair their wheels. This means that we do not have a full fleet available to run a good service.

"We will continue working around the clock to repair the wheels so that we can return to giving our customers the high level of service that they deserve as quickly as possible.‎"

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